Writer's Block: So far so good
Mar. 19th, 2010 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The only "new" movie I've seen since the new year started was Up, which was out for a while in 2009 anyway. Actually, I can count the number of movies period I've seen this year on one hand; they consist of Up, a re-watch of Family Guy's Something Something Something Darkside over Skype with Robert (he can get his desktop to display on my screen) and a re-watch of Mean Girls on YouTube. I don't even know what movies are out right now, except Alice in Wonderland (wish I could see it, though it's getting mixed reviews) and the One Piece movie in Japan. I'm normally not a huge movie person anyway, but I am watching less movies than I did even in high school, which you would think would be practically impossible. So I don't think I have any authority on this topic.
Books, however, I am doing much better on. I finished Our Lady of the Forest by David Gutterson on the airplane flying back after the new year and have read Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by MG Vassanji, Waiting by Ha Lin, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and am partway through The Yale Murder by Peter Meyer. These combined with the 6 or 7 books I read since my arrival in August means I am almost out of English reading material in my apartment and need to start trading around with other JETs, lol. It goes without saying that none of these are new releases for this year, merely books I have never read before. I think my favorite of these was The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. It was my kind of book, with politics, history, romance, family, and psychology, intertwining a personal story with a social/cultural narrative. And while I didn't know squat about 1950s-1980s Kenya or its politics going in, the book filled out the setting and history quite vividly and got me interested enough to actually look up more information.
The best song? I don't have regular exposure to newly-released English music (and I don't like Jpop and it's not any easier finding Japanese songs that would appeal to me), so the songs I've discovered are mostly old news but new to me. I mentioned in a survey how I really like West Coast by Coconut Records for being a good me-and-Robert song. Since the new year I also downloaded more Lady Gaga songs but only from her older album, and while I do like Beautiful, Dirty, Rich and The Fame nothing really sticks out head and shoulders above the hits I was already familiar with. I also downloaded some Goldfrapp because I like a couple of their songs-- but, as is usually the case (and explains why my ipod always makes no sense to people), not all of them. So I guess West Coast wins!
The only "new" movie I've seen since the new year started was Up, which was out for a while in 2009 anyway. Actually, I can count the number of movies period I've seen this year on one hand; they consist of Up, a re-watch of Family Guy's Something Something Something Darkside over Skype with Robert (he can get his desktop to display on my screen) and a re-watch of Mean Girls on YouTube. I don't even know what movies are out right now, except Alice in Wonderland (wish I could see it, though it's getting mixed reviews) and the One Piece movie in Japan. I'm normally not a huge movie person anyway, but I am watching less movies than I did even in high school, which you would think would be practically impossible. So I don't think I have any authority on this topic.
Books, however, I am doing much better on. I finished Our Lady of the Forest by David Gutterson on the airplane flying back after the new year and have read Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by MG Vassanji, Waiting by Ha Lin, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and am partway through The Yale Murder by Peter Meyer. These combined with the 6 or 7 books I read since my arrival in August means I am almost out of English reading material in my apartment and need to start trading around with other JETs, lol. It goes without saying that none of these are new releases for this year, merely books I have never read before. I think my favorite of these was The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. It was my kind of book, with politics, history, romance, family, and psychology, intertwining a personal story with a social/cultural narrative. And while I didn't know squat about 1950s-1980s Kenya or its politics going in, the book filled out the setting and history quite vividly and got me interested enough to actually look up more information.
The best song? I don't have regular exposure to newly-released English music (and I don't like Jpop and it's not any easier finding Japanese songs that would appeal to me), so the songs I've discovered are mostly old news but new to me. I mentioned in a survey how I really like West Coast by Coconut Records for being a good me-and-Robert song. Since the new year I also downloaded more Lady Gaga songs but only from her older album, and while I do like Beautiful, Dirty, Rich and The Fame nothing really sticks out head and shoulders above the hits I was already familiar with. I also downloaded some Goldfrapp because I like a couple of their songs-- but, as is usually the case (and explains why my ipod always makes no sense to people), not all of them. So I guess West Coast wins!
